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Today has been a wonderful and spectacular day! We left Alice Springs at about 9.30, after filling up with fuel and getting a few essentials in town. We headed back south along the Stuart Highway, and after 190ks, we turned right onto Ernest Giles Rd, an unsealed, dirt track, short cut to Kings Canyon. It was actually a really good road, and other than a couple of deep sandy sections, we made good time. We paused briefly at a place called Henbury, where 4000 years ago, a meteorite broke into 8 pieces entering the atmosphere and impacted with the Earth. Four large pieces landed here, and four smaller pieces landed further to the south west. The craters caused by the impact are still really obvious, and have created quite a dramatic landscape, in an otherwise vast and boring desert. The sign says the pieces were travelling at 40000kph when they hit, (I reckon it was closed to 50000kph...) and the craters are quite large and deep. They have created their own ecosystems and environments in the time since, and although wind, rain and erosion have taken their toll, it's still an amazing site to see...
After 100km of dirt, we rejoined the Luritja Road, which took us direct to Kings Canyon. We checked in at the resort, and had a late, quick lunch in our room before heading out to the canyon for a look around. What can we say about Kings Canyon? It's beautiful and spectacular for sure, and a totally different landscape to what you see when you're driving to it, but it's not awe inspiring like Uluru. It's significant to the local aboriginal people for ceremonies and initiations, and a reliable hunting ground, but it's a long way from having the effect the rock has. It's beautiful, and the landscape we walked through inside the canyon was lovely, and well worth the visit, but to be completely honest, it felt like an anti-climax after what we had expected. Unfortunately, it was too late in the day for us to start the full rim walk around the top, which may have left us with a better impression, but we did walk up to the top, to get the view from up there. We plan to go back early tomorrow and try to fit it in if we can, before doing the Mereenie Loop to Glen Helen Resort.
The weather has remained constant, with bright blue skies, and long sunny days. It's been chilly in the mornings and evenings (at times quite cold), but we're rugged up in bed, and it doesn't bother us. The days sit around 22 degrees, and only feels cool if there's a breeze. It's proven to be a really good time of year to visit. Jo thought she'd try to be funny, and picked up a rock inside the canyon, and made a comment about how pretty it was and how it would make a nice memento... She hasn't been since, and there's no point coming looking for her!!
As a treat today, we have some words of wisdom from Dylan, that I'd like to share with you... We'd climbed steep stone stairs to the top of the canyon rim, a long way, and the stairs were steep. On the way back down, I was telling the boys to go slowly and carefully, because a twisted ankle wasn't what we needed, when Dylan made the comment "I always choose the next rock I'm going to put my foot on, because that's better than letting the rock choose me!" Ha!! How true is that?!?
To finish up, we went to Overlanders Steakhouse in Alice last night for dinner, and the food was simply amazing. It's a great restaurant, and has become a tourist attraction in its own right, and we highly recommend it if you want a good night out.
And Pixie is going strong....
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